"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed."

If those words aren't burned into our collective consciousness, they should be. If you've forgotten, they were part of a statement issued in August 2011, when Standard & Poor's reduced the United States' credit rating after our elected leaders walked to the edge of a cliff known as the debt limit.

It was the first time in our nation's history we'd suffered such a worldwide slap in the face for legislative bickering . Our lawmakers knew the consequences of their inaction, stalled, stalled, and stalled some more until they acted, but much too late to prevent negative steps they'd already put in motion.

Don't look now, but here we go again, this time walking toward a new edge known as the "fiscal cliff." This was designed as the consequence to spur action, a piece of the Budget Control Act so extreme that our lawmakers would have no choice but to act before it was implemented. But they didn't, and now the clock is into single digits and we're out of timeouts. Again.

If our leaders don't reach a bipartisan debt-reduction deal by the end of the year, on Jan. 1 our country will being spending less on defense. The Bush tax cuts will expire. The payroll tax holiday will end. Extended unemployment benefits will stop. Physician reimbursements for Medicare will be cut.

The expiring tax cuts means everyone will have less money. Since consumer spending accounts for nearly three-quarters of our country's economy activity, and we're still slowly recovering from a damaging recession, this does not seem like a positive solution.

There are tough choices to be made, we do not dispute that. We need to make some painful budget cuts. Our entitlement programs must be reformed. And we need to increase government revenue (yes, we're talking about tax increases).

We call on our senators, Republican Roy Blunt and Democrat Claire McCaskill, to lead the way toward the necessary bipartisan compromise. Missouri has always been a commonsense kind of state, and these negotiations require some no-nonsense solutions.

It's time for the self-inflicted wounds to stop. Let's back away from the cliff, continue our economic recovery and get to the business of building a strong foundation for a prosperous future.